I'd Rather Be In Love
by KittKatt001
Summary: How do you find the one thing you're missing? Addex.


**Title: **I'd Rather Be In Love  
**Characters:** Addison Sheppard, Alex Karev  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Grey's or any of the characters  
**Summary:** How do you find the one thing you're missing?

**Author's Note:** So funny thing… I've now updated every four days! For the last three stories anyways. However, I have a school thing for about the next month, so I don't know how that's going to go over. Ah well. I'll keep writing and just save up the typing for later. I have plot bunnies that are bothering me, but they go away pretty quickly so I'm left with a lot of one shots while I'm trying to write a full length story. So enjoy this, and remember, reviews are love 3

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Derek was the high school sweetheart. The one who promises forever, whose eyes show the true depths of their love for you. I think what drew me to him was his idealism. Nothing could ever go wrong in his world. Every day was a clean slate.

He was always so considerate, and very visible in his affections. When we first became interns, our schedules were so hectic we barely ever saw each other. He started to leave notes in my purse, my jackets, even my jeans. I would find them randomly throughout the day. They were just little things, like "You look amazing", "Good luck in surgery today", or "I love you". Sometimes it was just a simple "hi". He cared so much about me, that if it had been anyone else I might have been frightened. But it was Derek, and he couldn't love with anything less than his entire self. His love was a powerful thing.

And then he met Mark. At first I didn't know him very well. He was Derek's friend, not mine. Sometimes we would nod and smile in the hallways, and that was that. But as they spent more and more time together, I thought I should at least try to get to know him- maybe even become his friend.

He was the exact opposite of Derek. Every time the three of us went out, he had a different girl with him. And he was amazingly self-assured. He did everything with a sort of reckless abandon that was refreshing in such a strict and orderly world.

As we advanced in the ranks, Derek got called into the hospital more and more often. Neuro is a delicate field, and every injury was a crisis. Mark and I weren't called in nearly as often – I wasn't as good as I am now, and, after all, Plastics is a huge field, but it's rarely ever life threatening.

Mark and I started to spend more and more time together. I didn't have many friends outside of the hospital, so for every dinner reservation or play that Derek would I have missed, I found company in Mark. I still don't know when exactly my feelings for Mark became more than platonic, but I never acted on them. Even though Derek was never home, and was always too busy at work for anything more than a smile and a quick "hi", Derek was my first love, and I could never betray that.

Until, one night, Mark and I had a bit too much to drink, and we ended up kissing. It only took a second to realize what had happened, and we quickly pulled apart. He mumbled an excuse and bolted from the apartment. We never spoke of it again.

But one night, we were sober, and we kissed again. It became like a drug, and we were two addicts who constantly needed a fix. We knew it was wrong but it only made those stolen kisses more intoxicating. There were no notes from Mark, no open displays of affection, but there were stolen glances and empty on-call rooms. It progressed from the stolen kisses to the night that Derek caught us together, and the night that he walked out of my life.

Derek was everybody's perfect man. Mark was the forbidden fruit. I don't know why I wanted Mark so much. I felt like something had been missing from my relationship with Derek- like something that we had had once and lost. I didn't feel that with Mark, but I felt something like it. But I still wanted to salvage my relationship with Derek, because really, truly, I thought I loved him. I followed him to Seattle, and Mark followed me. But Derek had found Meredith, and as much as I never wanted to admit it, they had something Derek and I had never had.

But now, looking at the man lying next to me, I think that I might have found what was missing. Our relationship isn't perfect, far from it. We argue and we yell. We try to keep if professional at work. We have _really_ great make-up sex. And there's a look in his eyes that sends a shiver down my spine. When I see the way he looks at me, I know that I'm always the one that he thinks about before he falls asleep, and as soon as he wakes up.

His eyes open slowly, and he smiles at me, shaking off sleep. "Hey."

"Hey yourself."

But the really scary thing is that _he's_ the one whose always on my mind. And maybe, just maybe, I've found what was missing, in the arms of Alex Karev.

Love.


End file.
